Nature is good for you

A report published today (4 October 2013) has found that the natural environment has a positive impact on mental wellbeing, according to Natural England.

Called Monitoring of Engagement with the Natural Environment (MENE): Wellbeing and the Natural Environment, the report features data from more than 3,500 interviews conducted between May 2012 and February 2013.

Survey participants were asked a series of questions about how and when they used the natural environment, alongside four key questions – used by the Office for National Statistics to measure levels of wellbeing among the adult population in the UK – about life satisfaction, how worthwhile life is, happiness and anxiety. Participants rated each question on a scale of 0 (‘not at all’) to 10 (‘completely’).

It was found that respondents who were regular users of the outdoors were far more likely to give positive assessments of their mental wellbeing.
 

The questions

• Life satisfaction: Overall, how satisfied are you with life nowadays? • Worthwhile: Overall, to what extent do you feel that the things you do in your life are worthwhile? • Happiness: Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday? • Anxiety: Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday?

The highest levels of happiness were recorded by people who typically visit the outdoors more than once a week – a mean score of 7.7 against a total population average of 7.4. In terms of people most likely to rate their life activities as ‘worthwhile’, the highest scores came from those who walk or cycle whenever possible, are members of an environmental organisation, and who buy seasonal or locally grown food (a mean score of 8.5 compared to 7.6 for the population as a whole). Those who take part in gardening, watching wildlife and doing unpaid voluntary work also rate their activities as highly worthwhile (8.4). People who took part in gardening, watching wildlife and watching or listening to nature programmes rated their anxiety levels as much lower than average (2.2 compared to 2.8).

Unsurprisingly, other factors such as working status, home ownership, long-term illness and disability all affected the results.

Download the full report here.